Electronic cigarettes (E-Cigs) have been developed as an essentially smokeless alternative that provides smokers with the equivalent satisfaction of traditional smoking without many of the public health issues caused by secondary smoke exposure. Many of the E-Cigs known in the relevant art are adapted for portable use and utilize batteries to power an atomizer. Atomizers are available which utilize a number of different properties to cause atomization of a liquid including heating, piezometric vibration and ultrasonic vibration. However, all atomizers utilized by portable vaporizers require electrical power drawn from batteries in a generally uncontrolled manner. For example, a simple portable vaporizer can be constructed from as few as three parts; a battery, an atomizer and a switch to turn power supplied to the atomizer on and off. This simple arrangement works for short periods of time since the full output of the battery is applied continuously to the atomizer. Prolonged application of the full battery output can result in damage to either or both the battery and/or atomizer. At the very least, battery life is dramatically shortened to the point where a user is either limited to a few uses of the portable vaporizer before battery charging and/or replacement is required.